1. Field
The present invention is directed to processing of content provided on a server and, more particularly, to a method and system determining a site which is a jump destination of a selected hyperlink.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to reduce a process load of a WEB server, there is a case in which a plurality of sites storing the same data are correlated to a hyperlink established to a WEB site made public by the WEB server, and sites which are considered jump destinations in the event that the hyperlink is designated are distributed. A site which is a jump destination is selected, for example, in accordance with a ratio set in advance (hereafter referred to as a “jump destination distribution ratio”).
In order to select a site in accordance with the jump destination distribution ratio, for example, there is a method that uses an applet which operates in a terminal carrying out a WEB browsing.
For example, a setting value which regulates an operation of the applet, such as the jump destination distribution ratio, is downloaded from a specific WEB server at a point in time at which the terminal accesses a specific URL and, in the event that there is an operation of jumping to a site, a site which is the jump destination is selected in accordance with the already downloaded setting value.
However, according to the typical method described heretofore, in the event that the setting value of the applet downloaded from the WEB server has a property of changing over time, a setting value in the WEB server changes over time due to the fact that a certain time period has elapsed since the terminal has downloaded the setting value. For this reason, there is a case in which the setting value in the terminal differs from the setting value in the WEB server and, in spite of the fact that it is recommended to download a latest setting value after a temporal change into the terminal, a site is selected in accordance with the setting value downloaded at a point in time at which the terminal has first accessed the specific URL.
For this reason, there is a case in which the applet cannot carry out an optimum operation. On the other hand, in the event of adopting an operation aspect such as causing a user to download the latest setting value immediately before the user carries out an operation of jumping to a site, the user's processing load increases.
Also, an arrangement is proposed in JP-A-10-207805 such that, by enabling communication between an application on a WWW server and an applet executed on a WWW browser, and transmitting data, to which is added an identification tag indicating that they are addressed to the applet or the application, during the communication between the application and the applet, it is possible to control the applet from the application.
However, according to this method, regardless of whether or not there is a user's operation, the communication is carried out between the application and the applet. For this reason, for example, in the event that data updated every time the data is updated on the WWW server are transmitted to the WWW browser, the data is updated at a timing which a user may not intend, or a processing load increases due to communication between the application and the applet which the user does not intend.